Ireland drop to 8th in IRB rankings

chris85

Not going well for Irish rugby this month. Now down to 8th in the world rankings. Fairly poor considering we were at 4th earlier this year.

http://www.irishrugby.ie/ireland/23766.php

I was buzzed for this RWC a few weeks ago but hard to look forward to it with our team underperforming. I will still be supporting hard and hoping we do well.

padser

chris85 wrote: »

Not going well for Irish rugby this month. Now down to 8th in the world rankings. Fairly poor considering we were at 4th earlier this year.

http://www.irishrugby.ie/ireland/23766.php

I was buzzed for this RWC a few weeks ago but hard to look forward to it with our team underperforming. I will still be supporting hard and hoping we do well.

We live in hope - that's what following Ireland is all about.

buck65

I'm half thinking of supporting France for this one instead. We obviously aren't going to win it.

World rankings are a nonsense. We should be 10th.

Thanos

Wow we are now behind Wales AND Scotland!!! :eek:

Mind you if either of them had played the teams we did I bet they would have lost a number of points also.

wixfjord

buck65 wrote: »

I'm half thinking of supporting France for this one instead. We obviously aren't going to win it.

World rankings are a nonsense. We should be 10th.

Let's not go OTT!

chris85

buck65 wrote: »

I'm half thinking of supporting France for this one instead. We obviously aren't going to win it.

World rankings are a nonsense. We should be 10th.

Off you go!

I will continue to support my country and i believe we have a good team individually but they are not gelling together.

B0X

Lower than Scotland... ouch, my pride!

part time punk

Ranked 8th seems about fair enough. Going by that rank we should at least get out of the group stages.

endabob1

buck65 wrote: »

World rankings are a nonsense. We should be 10th.

You're half-right, the rankings are a nonsense, there's no way Scotland should be ahead of us or Argentina.

LuckyLloyd

Who gives a ****!

SARZY

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Who gives a ****!

I wonder what our lowest ranking was ever.

Am I right that a ranking outside the top 8 is why we had to go through a kind of pre-qualifying for a previous World cup and then ended up in a group with 2 big teams to beat to make a quarter final.

8th is just about right but below that would be a disaster.

Hagz

SARZY wrote: »

I wonder what our lowest ranking was ever.

8th

buck65

chris85 wrote: »

Off you go!

I will continue to support my country and i believe we have a good team individually but they are not gelling together.

Lol I suppose someone was going to take my post seriously.

Quint2010

Well we are lucky to be 8th I reckon. All the 6N teams are better than us on form and so probably are Argentina and one or two of the Pacific Island teams.

CatFromHue

The rankings are only an approximation and don't take into account anything other than the result. Before the 2007 World Cup South Africa were ranked fourth, Argentina sixth, and England seventh. After the tournament South Africa were the World Champions, England the runners up, and Argentina the third best team. So you can only get so much info out of what could in effect be random numbers!

seanmc1980

Quint2010 wrote: »

Well we are lucky to be 8th I reckon. All the 6N teams are better than us on form and so probably are Argentina and one or two of the Pacific Island teams.

what are you smoking? a couple of results doesn't make you a piss poor team, ireland are behind SA, NZ, Australia, England and France. so i'd say 6 would be a fairer position. irish supposters are so fickle sometime, were either the best in the world or the worst!

Podge_irl

endabob1 wrote: »

You're half-right, the rankings are a nonsense, there's no way Scotland should be ahead of us or Argentina.

The same Scotland who have beaten us in 2 of the last 3 games?

theKramer

Podge_irl wrote: »

The same Scotland who have beaten us in 2 of the last 3 games?

They barely beat our 2nd/3rd string team at the start of August, so that says a lot about them...

Podge_irl

theKramer wrote: »

They barely beat our 2nd/3rd string team at the start of August, so that says a lot about them...

Them beating us at home in the '10 6N says a fair bit about us too.

I think we're better then Scotland but not by a hell of a lot and the results in the last couple years back that up.

6th is about as high as we could expect to be placed at the moment. Given out hideous run of form 8th could be seen as almost generous.

theKramer

Podge_irl wrote: »

Them beating us at home in the '10 6N says a fair bit about us too.

I think we're better then Scotland but not by a hell of a lot and the results in the last couple years back that up.

6th is about as high as we could expect to be placed at the moment. Given out hideous run of form 8th could be seen as almost generous.

It also says a lot about the difference Ross, POC and Flannery make to our Scrum and Lineouts, respectively...

Scary that we are so reliant on 3 people to have a decent set-piece.

Quint2010

Ireland have won 5 and lost 12 out of our last 17 matches since we beat England in Twickenham in 2010. Its not just a blip we are going thru at the moment.

death1234567

buck65 wrote: »

We obviously aren't going to win it.

Did you ever realistically think we could?

MyKeyG

padser wrote: »

We live in hope - that's what following Ireland is all about.

More often than not we live in anguished disappointment:D

MyKeyG

seanmc1980 wrote: »

what are you smoking? a couple of results doesn't make you a piss poor team, ireland are behind SA, NZ, Australia, England and France. so i'd say 6 would be a fairer position. irish supposters are so fickle sometime, were either the best in the world or the worst!

I don't think we're fickle. I think we're naive in our belief until reality hits us like a train.

buck65

No. Actually I was throwing water on our "chances" a long time ago. I said then that Wales, England, France and the other 3 SH teams would all beat us in a knockout.
Scotland and Argentina could rattle us too. I have seen nothing this last month to persuade me otherwise.
Our planning for this tournament has been farcical.
We have essentially 2 feasible props, one decent hooking option who is short of match practice and one more injury away fom retirement. Our lineout falls apart without Flannery. We look light enough in second row options too as Cullen and O Callaghan are playing dire stuff.
Our back row already seems to be half buckled, with Wallace out we are seriously stretched and dependant on O Brien and Heaslip remaining fit. Jennings is not a ball carrier per se and perhaps a bit lightweight for the bigger teams. Leamy and Ryan are fine but neither are impact subs. Perhaps McLaughlin would have brought more balance here now considering Wally's absence.
Scrum half is really a matter of time before Kidney realises Murray should start because Reddan in fairness isn't great at the moment, Boss would be worth a serious look too perhaps in game 3.
Out half is still not settled, O Gara now looks the more inform starter but Sexton will get the nod due to size and running ability. Either are reliable enough to do the job.
Midfield is chaos without O Driscoll. D'arcy really isn't firing and hasn't in a while but we have no alternatives. Mc Fadden should have played centre not wing when he came on. Earls is getting shafted along the line like Geordan Murphy in the past and is short on confidence and not yet (perhaps ever) a 13.
Tommy Bowe is short of fitness, Trimble is solid, thankfully our best full back is back in the team.

Quint2010

The fact we are nearer Argentina in 9th than we are Scotland in 7th speaks volumes. We may justify our ranking and scrape a QF place. Obviously Australia will beat us and going on where the team currently is we will be crushed by SA and there is a reasonable possibility Italy will beat us and we will not qualify. Again.

ArmaniJeanss

SARZY wrote: »

Am I right that a ranking outside the top 8 is why we had to go through a kind of pre-qualifying for a previous World cup and then ended up in a group with 2 big teams to beat to make a quarter final.

It was for a different reason that we had to pre-qualify.
Back then only the quarter finalists qualified automatically for the next competition, we got beaten by Argentina in Lens in a (playoff) round before the quarter finals and thus had to do a Euro qualification group against Romania and Georgia.

It has since been changed such that the top 3 in each group at the preceding World Cup auto qualify for the next one.

Syferus

Jesus. We play a bunch of warm-up games where we never play our best team, key players are being kept in cotton wool, and losing suddenly makes us no hopers.

At the very least it means there's not four million people heaping pressure on a team that's represented this country with pride for a very long time. I've plenty of faith that we're neither as bad as people seem to think we are and that Australia and South Africa aren't as unstoppable as those same people think they are.

MyKeyG

Syferus wrote: »

Jesus. We play a bunch of warm-up games where we never play our best team, key players are being kept in cotton wool, and losing suddenly makes us no hopers.

Oh now come on, Irelands form was average at best in the 6nations and Autumn despite rising our game against England.

I'm not saying we can't do it, I'm saying we're NOT doing it. I'm personally getting a little bit sick and tired of POC and Kidney coming out with the same speel after every game. 'We're disappointed' or 'we can take positives from the game'. Stop talking and take the flippin positives Ireland.

sock puppet

Syferus wrote: »

Jesus. We play a bunch of warm-up games where we never play our best team, key players are being kept in cotton wool, and losing suddenly makes us no hopers.

I doubt we've fielded our "best" team in about 2 years. I don't think we're particularly unlucky with injuries but teams are always going to be missing players.

Podge_irl

Syferus wrote: »

Jesus. We play a bunch of warm-up games where we never play our best team, key players are being kept in cotton wool, and losing suddenly makes us no hopers.

Losing 8 of the previous 13 matches hasn't helped much either.

cgpg5

No complaints and it's not just the warm up games either, we had a very poor 6N too, England game aside we could easily have lost all of our other games.

buck65

Syferus wrote: »

Jesus. We play a bunch of warm-up games where we never play our best team, key players are being kept in cotton wool, and losing suddenly makes us no hopers.

At the very least it means there's not four million people heaping pressure on a team that's represented this country with pride for a very long time. I've plenty of faith that we're neither as bad as people seem to think we are and that Australia and South Africa aren't as unstoppable as those same people think they are.

This pride thing is nonsense. Do the English and French and even the Portuguese not play with pride?
No one is doubting workrate or pride, just the way Ireland play rugby is baffling. And the way the management have not developed a squad where an injury to any of BOD POC Healy or Ross and now Sean O Brien leaves us massively exposed.
Also all our best players have played in this series, let's not rewrite the facts here.

totallegend

Rankings me boll*ix, frankly.

We went into the 2003 RWC as third-ranked in the world and we were dumped out at the quarter-final stage, given a good hiding by a team who were a few places below us. I don't know what rank we were going into 2007 but we played like a team somewhere between Tonga and Georgia...

Our world ranking is the least of our worries right now.

CatFromHue

They're a tricky thing as on the 31st May we were fourth ahead of both England and France. Now England won the 6 Nations and we came joint second with France. Before the 6 Nations we were fifth behind England.

So you can read what you want into the rankings they'll never tell the full story.

Ardillaun

seanmc1980 wrote: »

what are you smoking? a couple of results doesn't make you a piss poor team, ireland are behind SA, NZ, Australia, England and France. so i'd say 6 would be a fairer position. irish supposters are so fickle sometime, were either the best in the world or the worst!

We are somewhere in the second tier, definitely below 5, as we have always been when it counts. There isn't much separating us from the next 6 teams. If the likes of Samoa or Tonga (or can I say it, Italy) beat us, I wouldn't require smelling salts.

Quint2010

CatFromHue wrote: »

They're a tricky thing as on the 31st May we were fourth ahead of both England and France. Now England won the 6 Nations and we came joint second with France. Before the 6 Nations we were fifth behind England.

So you can read what you want into the rankings they'll never tell the full story.

They tell the full story right now. 5 wins in 17 matches...

CatFromHue

Quint2010 wrote: »

They tell the full story right now. 5 wins in 17 matches...

Do they tell you that the squad taken to Nz and Oz last year was severely weakened through injury?

Do they tell you that our last 4 games have been pre season friendlies?

Do they tell you that Wales's winning try in the 6 Nations was a major mistake by the ref and touch judge and shouldn't have been allowed?

buck65

Do they tell you we're shoite?
Why yes , yes they do.

wrmwit

I reckon Ireland will do better than we think. I hope so anyway! The last two World Cups there was a lot of expectation on the team and they didn't deliver. The warm up games were disastrous with Geordon Murphy suffering a broken leg, that game against Bayonne where O'Driscoll nearly lost an eye and other sh1te doing the rounds with Eddie O' Sullivan knocked the team back a bit.
The warm up games this year were thankfully less intensive and the team were trying out new tactics that obviously didn't work and I'd rather see that now rather than in the WC itself. The only disaster to come out of the warm up games was David Wallace.
This is the last WC for all of the team leaders and you'll be guaranteed that'll they'll give everything and that'll rub off the young lads.
The first game though is not just about beating USA, but how they go about it.

buck65

Heard O Sullivan on Newstalk last night, basically the USA are targetting the Russia game a few days after the Irish game and are even resting a few players for it.
Good news for us.

CatFromHue

buck65 wrote: »

Heard O Sullivan on Newstalk last night, basically the USA are targetting the Russia game a few days after the Irish game and are even resting a few players for it.
Good news for us.

Do you honestly think we're incapable of beating the USA's first team?

buck65

No I think we will beat them but having a fired up September 11 - 10th anniversary mood - weakened USA to me is a better option than playing them full strength if we want to hit the ground running in this tournament and get some semblance of form.
We thought we would hammer Namibia and Georgia in the last RWC, are we a much better side now? I wouldn't be complacent.

DerTierarzt

chris85 wrote: »

Not going well for Irish rugby this month. Now down to 8th in the world rankings. Fairly poor considering we were at 4th earlier this year.

http://www.irishrugby.ie/ireland/23766.php

I was buzzed for this RWC a few weeks ago but hard to look forward to it with our team underperforming. I will still be supporting hard and hoping we do well.

Doesn't really matter, as far as I know it only matters a damn when it comes to seeding for the World Cup. And sure we're going to win that anyway so we'll automatically qualify for the next one.

CatFromHue

CatFromHue wrote: »

The rankings are only an approximation and don't take into account anything other than the result. Before the 2007 World Cup South Africa were ranked fourth, Argentina sixth, and England seventh. After the tournament South Africa were the World Champions, England the runners up, and Argentina the third best team. So you can only get so much info out of what could in effect be random numbers!

yes - weren't we ranked 3rd just before the last world cup and look what happened. shows how nonsensical the rankings are alright!!!!!

edit: we were 5th actually - checked. still - too high!

http://www.irb.com/rankings/archive/date=2007-09-03/histranking.html

jacothelad

CatFromHue wrote: »

The rankings are only an approximation and don't take into account anything other than the result. Before the 2007 World Cup South Africa were ranked fourth, Argentina sixth, and England seventh. After the tournament South Africa were the World Champions, England the runners up, and Argentina the third best team. So you can only get so much info out of what could in effect be random numbers!

...and to make them even more farcical, points gained or lost in the RWC count double for ranking purposes. That is mathematically daft since they are weighted also on a home / away basis.

Ardillaun

CatFromHue wrote: »

They're a tricky thing as on the 31st May we were fourth ahead of both England and France. Now England won the 6 Nations and we came joint second with France. Before the 6 Nations we were fifth behind England.

So you can read what you want into the rankings they'll never tell the full story.

Just watching the games on the weekend from England - LIR-HRL and Nthmptn-Glouc - so many great English players were left behind e.g. May, Cato, Ojo, Monye, Dowson, Simpson-Daniel. There's no way we can expect to compete with such depth. If we do we should be pleasantly surprised.